Leadership wrangles threaten the heart and soul of the Methodist Church in Kenya, one of the oldest churches in the country as splinter factions have emerged in the Coast Region Conference (CRC).
Mombasa Synod Committee has detached and distanced itself from the Church conference until their grievances are addressed.
The Mombasa Synod Standing Committee, led by its Treasurer, David Kaburia, says that it will not remit funds to the conference or participate in its activities.
“We shall not receive any new minister into our circuits or allow anyone to go. In the unlikely event of a vacancy we shall employ our own and not from the conference office,” stated Kaburia, terming CRC as an illegal entity.
“We shall treat anyone from the conference office as a stranger in our Synod, circuits, churches and anywhere else within our jurisdiction,” he added.
The committee also denounced the Methodist Church in Kenya’s Rev. Isaya Deye as their Presiding Bishop and will henceforth not take any instruction from him.
Kaburia revealed that the Coast region has had several challenges, and the conference has developed a dubious way of doing things, when they interact with them.
“They have a preference, especially from the high office, we being in the mainstream church feel like we are getting a raw deal,” he said.
Mombasa Synod has written letters to the Methodist Church, but they are lamenting that no efforts to reconciliation have been made.
“We have tried to have an audience and a meeting with our current Presiding Bishop more than six times and all those meetings have aborted for reasons that we don’t know. They normally abort at the last minute,” stated Kaburia.
Amos Chivumbe, a Member of the Standing Committee revealed that they had met with the Presiding Bishop to iron out the existing differences with the other group, but the efforts didn’t bore fruits as preference tilt in favor of the other faction.
“However, we are ready for talks to resolve the outstanding issues because we are all one,” said Chivumbe.
By Sadik Hassan